In our inaugural Climate History Conversation at Georgetown University, world-renowned climatologist Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and author of more than 200 publications, will review what we know about past climate changes, and what they could tell us about the future. He will review cutting-edge work over the past decade that aims to establish the nature of, and causes for, large-scale climate variability in past centuries. He will explain how scientists have used “proxy” evidence from tree rings, ice cores, lakebed sediments, and other sources alongside computer model simulations to trace this variability. Such research has helped us understand the cause of present-day climate change, and revealed whether it has any precedent in the history of human civilization.

Many environmental historians of climate change attend annual ASEH conferences. This gives our humanist members an opportunity to meet. In the past, professors Sam White and Dagomar Degroot led formal "Climate History Breakfasts." However, we found that the high subscription fees for these events excluded graduate students from participation. At this year's ASEH conference, therefore, we will lead an informal lunch for anyone interested in climate history. After some networking and discussion, we will talk about how the CHN has grown in the past year, and where we'd like to go in the future.